


Four times Lip almost calls the police (and one time he didn't have to)

by AngryGinger (Error401)



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Child Abuse, Gen, Ian is tired of everyone, Ian sleeps with everyone he shouldn't, Lip is an awesome brother, M/M, Mild Language, Non-Graphic Violence, Protective!Lip, Protective!Mickey, except when he's not
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-14
Updated: 2013-02-14
Packaged: 2017-11-29 05:25:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/683337
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Error401/pseuds/AngryGinger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ian deserves so much better than anything these creeps have to offer. </p><p>Lip often wonders why he and his siblings only attract the creeps.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Four times Lip almost calls the police (and one time he didn't have to)

**Author's Note:**

> Hi guys! Let me know if you like, or if you have any requests! I love prompts!

1.

He goes into the Kash and Grab one day when Ian isn’t working, making sure the store is empty before locking the door behind him. He takes two deep breaths. 

He swipes his tongue over chapped lips, rubbing his hands together to try and generate some warmth. Mentally prepares himself. “Hey, Kash!” he yells, fighting back the visceral desire to growl when the man sticks his head out of the back room, fear already present in his brown eyes. 

“Y-yes? Lip?” he stutters, eyes shifting nervously around the store. “You need another—“

“I locked the door,” Lip says, taking a few steps closer and clenching his fists. He really wants to punch the motherfucker. 

“L-listen, Ian and I—“

Lip cuts him off. “There is no ‘Ian and I,’ you fucking pedophile,” he says, voice lowering almost to a whisper. “Give me one reason why I shouldn’t beat your face in for touching him. He’s a kid, for fuck’s sake! What the hell is wrong with you?!” He can’t keep the disgust from seeping in, his nails from digging into his palms, his fingers itching with violent rage.

“It’s not like that!” Kash insists, eyes widening. As if he never considered the possibility that fucking a child was a bad idea. 

“You have a wife and kids!” Lip yells, taking another step forward, his anger carrying his body towards the thing he wants no better than to beat the shit out of. “What kind of man does that?!”

“I care about Ian, okay?” Kash finally raises his voice, on the defensive. “And he cares about me!”

“Congratulations for manipulating a fucking teenage boy into having pity sex with you,” Lip scowls, mouth twisted with revulsion.

Kash’s head jerks. “It’s not like that!”

“So you keep saying,” Lip scoffs. “I’m sure the cops will see it exactly like that.”

“What?” Kash panics. “You can’t—“

“Give me one reason, you bastard,” Lip challenges. “One reason why I shouldn’t turn your ass in.”

“Ian,” Kash says quietly. “You think Ian will forgive you if you turn me in? Who else does he have here, but me?”

“He has me,” Lip says darkly, turning around quickly. But he knows Kash is right. Ian wouldn’t forgive him.

2.

Blood oozes slowly from Ian’s forehead, the slice on his temple jagged and bruised. He flinches away every time Lip tries to dab at it with hydrogen peroxide, but Lip persists, finally grabbing his brother’s neck to hold him still. Ian’s eyes water like he wants to cry, but he doesn’t. Lip knows that he never will.

“What happened this time?” Lip asks nonchalantly, wiping a few bloody flakes away from the edges. 

“I was—ah!” he bites his lip as Lip presses on the wound’s tender center, feels the bubbles killing the bacteria. “Frank was trying to steal my ROTC gear.”

“Drunk?” Lip asks, though he already knows the answer.

“Yeah,” Ian says. “What the fuck would he need a sleeping bag and hiking equipment for, anyway?” he tries to sound lighthearted, but it comes out bitter. His head fucking hurts. 

“He hit you?” Lip asks.

“Dunno’,” Ian shrugs. “It happened pretty fast. I was trying to take it back from him, and he just…” he trails off as Lip sets down the bottle of peroxide and the cotton ball, pushing around the bandages in the first aid kit until he comes across one large enough to fit over the cut. “You’re lucky,” Ian says.

“You still won’t hit him back,” Lip shakes his head, brows furrowed as he tries to place the bandage over the cut and not get any of Ian’s hair caught in the process. 

“Would you?” Ian asks quietly.

“Fuck yes, I would!” Lip grunts, leaning away now that the bandage was secured. 

“But you don’t have to,” Ian says, standing up and shouldering his backpack. “He doesn’t hit you.”

Lip can’t find any words as Ian leaves, even though he wants to grab his brother and stick him in bed and check to make sure he doesn’t have a concussion. 

His fingers itch. 

He glances outside at the payphone beckoning from under the light of a streetlamp. 

His fingers itch.

3.

Lip often wonders why everyone in the world is a fucking idiot when it comes to liking someone, himself included. 

Mickey fucking Milkovich? Really? 

If there was one person in the whole fucking South Side he didn’t want his brother near, it was any male with that fucking last name. Did Ian not remember when Mickey was set on killing him? Did he not remember the beating that Lip took on his fucking behalf? Or Mickey’s crazy-ass brothers and father who would cripple someone for even saying the word “gay”?

Every time Ian came home, Lip found himself checking for bruises, for broken bones, for things under his clothes that brothers shouldn’t share but Lip had to know otherwise he would go crazy. His fingers itch. He waits for the phone call that’ll say, “Is this Lip Gallagher? We have some bad news about your brother.”

He breathes a sigh of relief when Mickey gets put in juvie the first time.

It doesn’t last long though, and as soon as he’s out, Lip sees scratches on Ian’s arms, bruises on his shoulders. He can’t say anything, though, because Mickey’s father will kill both his son and Ian if he ever learns the truth. He’s five minutes away from planting drugs in Mickey’s room and calling the police. 

Lucky enough for him, Mickey goes back. 

4.

Lip can barely stop his jaw from falling to the fucking floor. 

Jimmy/Steve’s…father? What the fuck?

How was it that his brother was always attracting these fucking creepy pedophiles? He has no stronger urge than to go downstairs and beat the fucker’s brains in, even if he is Steve’s father. What the actual fuck?

“Nice?” Lip repeats as Ian looks at the floor, arms crossing over his chest. “Ian, what the fuck? You let that guy touch you? I had no idea my brother was such a slut,” he says angrily, still feeling the old guy’s fingers on his skin. He wants to take a shower. He wants to make Ian take one. 

Ian lets out a little humorless laugh. “Fuck you, hypocrite!”

“He’s like eighty, Ian!” Lip shouts, and Fiona has to push a hand against his chest to calm him down. 

“You wouldn’t understand!” Ian yells back. “You can have any girl you want, but it’s not the same for me, okay? You don’t have to live every day in fear of someone finding out who you really are, don’t have to worry about having the shit beat out of you just for who you like! Fuck you, Lip! Lloyd makes me feel good about myself, you asshole, and that’s more than you’ve ever done!”

Lip groans as his brother stomps out of the room, no doubt going to talk the creepy fucker who just groped him. 

“You can’t be okay with this,” he turns to Fiona, who’s still looking a little shell-shocked. 

She looks at him helplessly and shrugs. “He’s looking for someone to care about him,” Fiona sighs. “You know he’s always been more sensitive about this kind of stuff.”

“So, what, we should just hang a sign around his neck that gives the go-ahead to all the perverts that’ll make him feel special?” Lip grinds out, disgusted. 

His fingers itch.

5.

“Frank, shit!” Ian growls, scrabbling at the floor of his bedroom as Frank sits on his back, laughing at his son’s struggle. “Get the fuck off of me!” He bucks up, but Frank remains stable, his laughter quickly devolving into anger. 

“Frank!” Lip shouts, trying to grab his father under the arms and lug him off of his brother, but Frank refuses to move, just pushes Lip away like it’s nothing. Lip can only think of one solution, but he doesn’t want to leave his brother alone while he runs to grab the frying pan from the kitchen, the baseball bat having gone missing two weeks ago. 

“Try and tell me I can’t wear the clothes in my own fucking house,” Frank grumbles, grabbing a fistful of Ian’s bright red hair. “Wanna’ tell me that again?”

“Let go! Fuck!” Ian demands, his voice infused with pain, and Lip makes up his mind, giving an apologetic look to his brother before turning to sprint down the stairs. 

He finds Mickey opening the door into the kitchen. “My sister here?” he asks quickly. Lip knows he’s not there to see Mandy. Mickey’s head turns sharply in the direction of the stairs when he hears Ian let out another cry. “What the fuck’s going on, Gallagher?”

“Frank. Ian,” is all he can get out before Mickey’s halfway down the hall and up the stairs. 

Lip didn’t think someone could move that fast, but Mickey does. A few heartbeats pass before he follows, forgetting about the pan. 

Frank crashes into him on his way out, nose spraying blood all over the front of his shirt. 

He stops before he gets back to the door of the room, inching his head until he can get a look at what’s going on inside.

“I’m fine,” Ian says, nursing his right arm, tenderly pressing against his shoulder.

“Let me see,” Mickey says, pulling at Ian’s shirt. 

“I said I’m fine!” Ian growls, pushing Mickey’s hands away. 

Mickey gives him a stern look, rolling his eyes at Ian’s stubbornness. “For fuck’s sake, firecrotch!”

Ian sighs. Relents. 

Mickey pulls Ian’s shirt off and check’s Ian’s arm with practiced fingers, Ian’s shoulder red and his forearm imprinted with the image of Frank’s hand. “Should have killed the fucker when I had the chance,” Mickey mutters, eyes now drawn to Ian’s body for reasons not purely medical. 

Lip recognizes that look. 

He backs away and goes downstairs, picks the pan out of the cabinet and sets it on the kitchen table. Sits down at one of the chairs. 

He reaches up and scratches his nose. 

He can live with it, if he has to.


End file.
